program counter


program counter

[′prō·grəm ‚kau̇nt·ər] (computer science) instruction counter

program counter

(hardware)(PC, or "instruction address register") Aregister in the central processing unit that contains theaddresss of the next instruction to be executed. The PC isautomatically incremented after each instruction is fetched topoint to the following instruction. It is not normallymanipulated like an ordinary register but instead, specialinstructions are provided to alter the flow of control bywriting a new value to the PC, e.g. JUMP, CALL, RTS.

program counter

A register in the control unit of the CPU that is used to keep track of the address of the current or next instruction. Typically, the program counter is advanced to the next instruction, and then the current instruction is executed. Also known as a "sequence control register" and the "instruction pointer." See address register and instruction register.